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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25191373">Kindergarten Boyfriend</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/pleaser_wallows/pseuds/pleaser_wallows'>pleaser_wallows</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), Childhood Friends, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Falling In Love, Friends to Enemies to Friends to Lovers, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 08:41:24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,553</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25191373</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/pleaser_wallows/pseuds/pleaser_wallows</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Richie and Eddie used to be "kindergarten boyfriends" but have since drifted apart. What will happen when they get partnered up for a school assignment and reminisce on their past now that they hate each other's guts?</p><p>Title from Heathers The Musical</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>35</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>this is the first fic im publishing on ao3 so please be nice??? maybe?????</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Um… hi,” a very nervous Eddie plays with his fingers as he mumbles to the dark-haired boy sitting on the swing in front of him. The boy looks up from the colorful comic book laying open on his lap. </p><p>“Oh! Hi,” the boy smiles warmly at Eddie. “I’m Richie. Wanna read my comic with me?” He gestures to the book in his lap. </p><p>Eddie looks down at it for a minute, thinking. “Well, um… I was actually gonna ask you if you need a band-aid or something for your knee.”</p><p>Richie looks down at his scraped knee that Eddie was pointing to like he didn’t realize it was even there. “Oh, that! No, I’m fine.” He smiles again. “Hey what’s your name?”</p><p>“Mama says that if you don’t take care of a boo-boo, it could get infected, which could lead to you getting a disease, which will probably lead to you being dead soon,” Eddie rambled off at the now stunned boy. After a minute of Eddie looking off in the distance, lost in his head, undoubtedly thinking about diseases or infections, and Richie just staring at him confused, Richie speaks, pulling Eddie back into reality. </p><p>“Well I feel fine, but thanks doctor,” he tips an invisible hat at Eddie. </p><p>“My name is Eddie.”</p><p>“And I’m Richie. Nice to meet ya, Doctor Eds.”</p><p>“One, you already told me your name, and two, my name is <em>Eddie</em>. Not Doctor Eds - or even Eds at all. That doesn’t even sound like a very good name.” Eddie thinks for another minute, staring off into space. “Anyway, can I please just fix your knee. It’s too gross and if you fall again or bump into something, that won’t do <em>any</em> good to it healing.”</p><p>“Uh, sure? I guess,” Richie holds out his knee a bit for Eddie and goes back to reading his comic.</p><p>Eddie gets on his knees, mindful of the patches of dirt on the ground that will hurt <em>his</em> knees if he’s not too careful, and starts on Richie’s scrapped, raw knee, pulling out supplies from his dark blue fanny pack.</p><p>“Are you excited for kindergarten to start tomorrow?” Richie asks over his book, now being held up in front of his face. </p><p>“Not really. The other kids will be mean and make weird faces at me or something,” Eddie hums while looking at his selection of band-aids in his fanny pack. </p><p>“Why would they bully you?” Richie asks curiously, putting down his book.</p><p>“I don’t know. I wear this fanny pack which I guess not a lot of people like, but it’s actually very handy and Mama says I need it for all my important stuff,” he says, taking the white paper off the back of a small superman band-aid. </p><p>“That’s dumb. I like your fanny pack. It’s cute and does look handy,” he smiles happily at Eddie then looks down at the band-aid now taped to his knee. “Oh my gosh! I <em>love</em> superman! I’m looking at that comic right now. See?” He shoves the book into Eddie’s face. </p><p>Eddie giggles, pushing the book away. “I know. I saw it when I came over here. You’re lucky. It was my last superman band-aid. Anyway, I gotta go. Mama’s probably wondering where I am. She only let me look around the play area for five minutes. It’s been,” he looks down at the watch on his wrist, “six minutes! Oh no, I really gotta go. Bye Richie!” </p><p>Richie doesn’t get a chance to say anything back because Eddie is already running away towards the office building located behind the sandbox. Richie gives a small wave to Eddie’s retreating figure, then bends over the book in his lap again, looking at the band-aid.</p><p>He touches it softly, then immediately winces from the pain. He smiles. </p>
<hr/><p>“Okay, everyone! Listen up.” </p><p>Richie looks up from the tan band-aid taped onto his knee, to see his English teacher, Mr. Slater, waving his hands around trying to get the attention of all the loud students.</p><p>“We are starting on our new essay assignment tomorrow. You will all have a partner to work with - stop looking at each other, I’m picking them. Yes, I know, I’m the worst teacher ever, ugh your lives are so hard,” Mr. Slater says sarcastically, rolling his eyes. Many students snicker. Some grumble.</p><p>Richie is not excited about this assignment. He’s never excited about <em>any</em> assignment ever, but especially when it includes having to work with other people. Richie does have friends, not much, but two is enough for him, but he doesn’t have any friends in most of his classes, including English. He actually prefers for his teachers to pick their partners so he doesn’t have to be the only one left just standing there, making a fool of himself by not having a partner. He wouldn’t actually mind if he got paired up with <em>most</em> of the kids in his classes. Unless they were Henry Bowers of course. Or Eddie Kaspbrak. </p><p>Eddie Kaspbrak he could possibly handle, at least better than being with Henry Bowers. Henry was the bully of the school- no. He was the bully of the <em>town</em>. He was basically all things terrible in the world and someone you <em>definitely</em> didn’t want to be around. Ever. Henry has weekly Beat-Up-Richie sessions with his gang and Richie, obviously. Richie is actually glad it’s only once a week and not every day so he has some time to heal. Most times they don’t get him too bad, but it’s rare if Richie gets out of one of his beat-up-sessions with no bruises or scars. </p><p>Bowers and his gang have started to leave him alone more the more he grew up. He was now in his Junior year of high school and the “sessions” have been getting much shorter and not so consistent. Richie worries it’s because they’re beating up more innocent kids. But, who’s Richie kidding, they definitely are. That’s why Henry Bowers is one of the worst people to exist. </p><p>Mr. Slater’s booming voice draws Richie out of his thoughts again. </p><p>“Okay, so. I’m passing out a paper that has all the instructions, criteria, and everything else you need to know for the assignment,” Mr. Slater said while passing out small stacks of bright pink papers to each row of desks. Once he was finished and all the students started passing each other the papers through the rows, he crossed the room back to the front whiteboard. “I’m gonna be telling you your partners now so everyone, please listen because I am not repeating this.”</p><p>“Jason Dean, you’re with Betty Ripsom. Ben Hanscom, you’re with Heather Duke, Veronica Sawyer, you’re with Patrick Hockstetter…”</p><p>After what felt like an eternity, Mr. Slater finally got to Richie’s name. “Richie Tozier, you are with…”</p><p>Richie crosses his fingers. <em>Please not Henry Bowers. Please not Henry Bowers. Please not Henry Bowers. Oh, I also really don’t want-</em> </p><p>“Eddie Kaspbrak.”</p><p>
  <em>Well, shit.</em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>i hope you liked that first chapter! please comment if you liked it or even loved it or even hated it. i want to know it all! the chapter lengths will most likely vary, but don't expect any to be long - sorry.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Eddie walks into the big school with his backpack on his shoulders, fanny pack resting on his waist, a small, tin lunch box in his right hand, and Sonia Kaspbrak’s hand in his left. </p><p>Eddie is scared for kindergarten. Anyone could tell just by looking at him. From his eyes wandering around the school nervously, all the way down to his feet shuffling on the linoleum floor of the hallway. </p><p>“Eddie,” a large, plump Sonia Kaspbrak says sternly down to him, tightening her hold on Eddie’s hand, “Pick your feet up. Stop walking like that.”</p><p>Eddie tried, he really did. He didn’t <em>like</em> scraping his feet along the floor. It felt dirty and unhygienic somehow, but he just couldn’t stop. He couldn’t stop <em>worrying</em>. </p><p>He hung his head down lower, mumbling a small “Yes, Mommy. Sorry, Mommy.”</p><p>“Stop mumbling too, Eddie. You aren’t going to find any friends if you keep mumbling all the time. How is anyone going to know what you are saying? Speak up, for the love of God.” </p><p>Eddie didn’t respond to that. He didn’t have to. He knew if he did, it would somehow be wrong again and make it worse. So he kept quiet and just looked down at his feet as they walked to Eddie’s classroom.</p><p>Eddie watched the linoleum under him change color when he passed over each square. The floor had a beige and white checkered pattern. They had those at the grocery store, too, but with darker colors so they stood out more. Eddie always loved escaping from his mother for a few minutes to run on the darker squares in the store. If he touched the white linoleum squares, he lost. He lost what, exactly? No one knows. That’s the beauty of playing games as a small child. Whatever you “lose” is rarely anything at all. </p><p>Now, on the first day of kindergarten, being watched by his mother, he can’t do that. He doesn’t get to feel free like he does in the grocery store for those few minutes before he hears Sonia yelling through the store about her missing child. He’s locked in here now. Hasn’t even started the day and he feels like he’s in a prison. </p><p>Maybe it’s just Sonia’s deathly grip on Eddie’s small hand. </p><p>Eddie finally looks up when they make it to the classroom door. </p><p>It’s a dark green door with a small window at the top of it. It wouldn’t look welcoming if it didn’t have the colorful posters on the outside of it. Eddie doesn’t know what they say, but they give him a strange feeling of <em>safe</em>-ness. He doesn’t really know that feeling well, yet. But, he did feel a similar feeling when he talked with that kid on the swings the day before. He liked that feeling.</p><p>Sonia opens the heavy classroom door with her free hand, letting the sound of little kids chatting from inside the room to flow out to the also busy hallway. </p><p>All around the room are more colorful, comforting posters, but not too much to hurt the eye. There are warm-colored fairy lights hanging up on the blue-gray painted walls. There are some big spaces on the walls which gives plenty of room for the students’ upcoming projects to be put up. The desks are evenly spaced throughout the classroom into little groups. There is a slightly bigger desk at the front of the classroom, obviously the teacher’s desk. Behind it is a shiny clean whiteboard with big bubble letters spelling out “Welcome to your first day of Kindergarten!” across the top. In smaller, neater handwriting under it says “Ms. Poppy”. </p><p>There are many kids already in their seats, making friends, and waiting for class to start. There are a few parents there, too, saying the last goodbye to their kids before going off to work for the day. </p><p>Eddie catches Richie's eyes across the class. Richie waves at him, showing off a big smile with a few teeth missing. Eddie smiles back. </p><p>Sonia walks them over to the teacher’s desk where the teacher is sitting peacefully, writing on some papers. She looks like she’s in her mid-20s with soft, smooth skin and short chestnut hair resting just above her shoulders. She looks cheerful and happy for the first day, obviously loving her job. </p><p>Sonia finally lets go of Eddie’s hand to talk to the teacher sternly. She warns her about all of Eddie’s “issues” and “problems”. Eddie doesn’t listen, though, because he starts walking to the other side of the room towards Richie. </p><p>Once he gets over to him, Richie immediately starts talking. </p><p>“Hey, Eds! I’m so glad we’re in Miss Poppy’s class together! It looks fun. What do you think? Is that your mommy? You should sit here with me! Do you wanna?” He pats the seat next to him. </p><p>Just when Eddie is about to answer at least <em>one</em> of Richie’s questions, Sonia’s booming voice travels across the classroom towards him and Richie. </p><p>“Eddie-bear. I am leaving now. Please stay safe, I will pick you up in a few hours. Your teacher has all your information so hopefully you’ll be safe for today. Goodbye, Eddie-bear. Love you, see you soon.” And with that, Sonia Kaspbrak leaves the classroom.</p><p>Eddie feels a rush of something soothing. The school suddenly doesn't feel like a prison anymore - it’s the exact opposite now. It was just his mother. He finally feels free again, like he can run around in the grocery store, feet hitting only the dark squares, and he’s <em>free</em>. </p><p>The chair legs <em>SCREECH</em> along the floor as he pulls it out from under the desk next to Richie’s. </p><p>He smiles at him. He’s <em>free</em> and <em>safe</em>.</p>
<hr/><p>A loud, slow <em>SCREEEEEECH</em> comes from the chair being pulled out next to Richie’s. Eddie watches his head resting on his crossed arms loll to the side, now facing him as Eddie sits down slowly in the cold, hard, plastic chair. </p><p>He places his books and binder gently on the table in front of him, watching Richie carefully sit up in his peripherals. </p><p>Richie opens his backpack, most likely for the first time since the class period started, and takes out a binder, a notebook, and a pen, also placing them on his desk.</p><p>“Look,” Eddie begins, turning to Richie while taking a deep breath. “I know we both don’t want to do this, <em>especially</em> with each other, but can we just get through this, and then we can go back to forgetting each other existed?”</p><p>Richie thinks for a second. “Okay,” he replies after a moment. “Good with me.” He shrugs. </p><p>“Okay. Good.” Eddie gives him a curt nod, then turns back to his belongings. </p><p>“Only if you promise to not boss me around,” Richie says easily, <em>challengingly</em>.</p><p>Eddie slowly turns his head to him. “<em>Excuse me?</em> I don’t <em>boss you around</em>,” he barks.</p><p>Richie throws his head back (he would hit his head on the back of his chair, but he’s gone through <em>many</em> growth spurts so he’s not even close to hitting his head, luckily) and lets out a loud laugh. “Are you kidding?! You boss <em>everyone</em> around!” </p><p>Eddie snaps. “What the <em>fuck</em>?! No, I do NOT!” </p><p>“Yes, you do!”</p><p>“Nuh-uh!”</p><p>“Yeah-huh!”</p><p>“BOYS!” Mr. Slater yells over them from across the room at his teacher’s desk, standing up angrily with his hands clenched into fists. “Do I need to speak with you two outside for a moment?”</p><p>“No sir,” Eddie replies, hanging his head low.</p><p>“No,” Richie replies, almost rolling his eyes. </p><p>“If you boys start bickering again, I <em>will</em> send you both to the office. Got it?” </p><p>“Got it.”</p><p>“Got it.”</p><p>Mr. Slater sits back down and resumes his work on his computer. </p><p>The other students around Eddie and Richie snicker at them.</p><p>Eddie glares at Richie with daggers basically shooting out of his eyes at the dark-haired teenager. </p><p>Richie just glares right back.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>hope you enjoyed that chapter! it's a bit longer than the first one :D please let me know if you like the bit longer length or if you like shorter chapters -- or chapters even longer! also please let me know if you like writing with more dialogue or more WRITING yknow? i also think I'm gonna try to make it so a new chapter comes out each week on the same day (might change it from Saturday to a different day, but right now it's Saturday is posting day) but please don't hold me to that. i can't really control when inspiration hits -- like i wrote this chapter at almost 3AM! it makes no sense to me how i just randomly thought of the whole chapter so late at night. this is getting way too long so bye! please comment and thanks for leaving kudos &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“No, Rich, not that high up.”</p><p>“Oh... okay,” Richie says, pushing off some sand from the top of their sandcastle. “Like that?”</p><p>“No,” Eddie scooched over to Richie’s place, abandoning his job on the castle’s dam. “Like <em>this</em>.” Eddie pushes a bit more sand off the top. “Now make the other smaller towers smaller. You know, to make it look more better.”</p><p>“Ohhh. I got it.” Richie tries to level the castle better by pushing off some sand from the smaller towers. Once he pushes some off, a loud squeal comes from next to him. </p><p>“RICHIE!” Eddie yells in his ear, looking at the castle like he just saw a ghost.</p><p>“What?!” </p><p>“TOO MUCH!”</p><p>“Oh,” Richie looks down at his work sadly. “Okay. I’ll just fix it.” He reaches down to get a handful of sand from next to his bent knee, and places the small ball of grain on top of the smaller tower he ‘ruined’. </p><p>“RICHIE!” Eddie yells again. </p><p>“WHAT, EDDIE!” Richie yells back, just trying to fix the tower in peace. </p><p>“You ruined the dam,” Eddie complains, sulking down at the dam that now has a chunk taken out of the top of the wall. </p><p>“Oh. Sorry, Eds,” Richie says, apologetically. He picks up a small handful of sand from the <em>other</em> side of him this time, then hands it to Eddie. “Here ya go. Now you can fix it. I can’t do it as good as you can.”</p><p>“Thanks, Rich.” He looks down sadly at the sand in his hand. “And,” he says, looking back up at Richie, “please don’t call me Eds.”</p><p>“Oh? What’s this? A sandcastle? Oh, look, Patrick! These two dummies made us a sandcastle!” A voice comes from behind the two kneeling boys in the sandbox. </p><p>Richie and Eddie turn around to see two tall boys - most likely second or third graders - walking up to them. The boy who spoke to them was wearing a dirty, old, tan shirt and grey jeans. He had a bad mullet made of dirty blonde hair and a terrible, evil grin on his face. The boy standing next to him - Patrick, apparently - had on dirty black clothes to match his hair and his dark eyes. He was laughing along with the other boy at Richie and Eddie. </p><p>The two smaller boys looked at each other for a moment, shrugging while saying through their eyes <em>‘I don’t know who these people are.’</em> </p><p>“Heh, they can’t talk!” Patrick says to the other boy, still laughing at Richie and Eddie. They have now stopped walking, just standing five feet away from the smaller boys.  </p><p>“You enjoying your first day of Kindergarten, girls?” </p><p>“We aren’t girls,” Richie says to them. </p><p>“Yeah,” Eddie agrees. </p><p>“Really? I really thought you were. Huh,” the boy motions Patrick to go towards them. Patrick does so, starting to walk over to the smaller boys again. </p><p>“What are you doing?” Richie asks, twisting his body to keep his eyes on Patrick who has now walked past the boys, now standing on the other side of the sandcastle. </p><p>“Don’t worry, girls. I’m just admiring your <em>beautiful</em> work,” Patrick says sarcastically, laughing. He kicks the structure with his large boot. </p><p>“Hey!” Richie yells at him, now standing up. </p><p>“What was that for?!” Eddie yells, too, standing up next to Richie. </p><p>“For fun.” Patrick shrugs. </p><p>“That wasn’t very nice,” Eddie pouts at him, arms crossed in front of his chest. Patrick pouts back, mockingly. </p><p>“You know what’s also not very nice?” the voice from behind them says. They turn back around to see him again. “<em>This</em>,” he says quickly before running towards Eddie and snatching his fanny pack off his person. Eddie tries to grab it back but the boy is too tall for him, holding it above his head while laughing evilly. </p><p>“GIVE IT BACK!” Eddie screams at him. The boy just laughs and unzips the pouch, pouring everything out onto the sand. <em>“NO!”</em> Eddie throws himself on the ground, quickly collecting all the fallen pill bottles and inhaler into his small hands. </p><p>“Why’d you do that?!” Richie yells up at the boy. </p><p>“For fun!” The boy just yells right back, all up in Richie’s face. His breath <em>reeked</em> of cigarette smoke. </p><p>“Give it back to him!” </p><p>“Nope! I’m gonna keep this for a while,” he says, smiling. He then looks behind Richie’s shoulder over at Patrick. “Let’s go, dude.” </p><p>Henry (they learned his name the next day and how bad he is) and Patrick both walk off while Richie throws daggers at their backs with his eyes. Once they are on the other side of the playground, Richie kneels back down next to Eddie. </p><p>Eddie’s face is resting in his hands full of pill bottles while his shoulders shake. “Oh no. Hey, Eds. It’s gonna be okay. They’re just meanies. We can get you another fanny pack, I promise!” Richie tries to console him, patting his shoulders. Eddie’s hands don’t move from his face so Richie moves them carefully, the pill bottles spilling out of Eddie’s hands onto his lap and the sand next to him. </p><p>Eddie’s eyes are red and tear-filled. There are tears streaming down his red, freckled cheeks. Richie puts his hands on Eddie’s cheeks, wiping away the tears with his small fingers. They look into each other’s sad eyes. </p><p>“Hey,” Richie whispers to Eddie. “Wanna go to my house after school today?”</p>
<hr/><p>“This isn’t gonna work if we only work on this in class. It’s taking too long. Can we go to your house or something?”</p><p>Richie looks over to Eddie, surprised. “Oh. Uh, sure?” </p><p>“Great. I’ll just call my mom from the front office to let her know. We can drive over to your house in our cars since we both have one. I can just drive behind you,” Eddie tells Richie while he starts to pack up his belongings on the desk. </p><p>“Wait, now?” Richie asks, very confused. </p><p>“Yeah? I mean, if that’s okay with you? We just really need to work on this project and we’re still kind of in the ‘working mood’ so why not just keep working?” </p><p>“Oh, yeah, sure. Totally. Okay,” Richie says, still a bit confused. He packs up, too.</p><p>Once they are done packing up and Mr. Slater excuses everyone once the bell rings, they go their separate ways to their lockers with a plan. </p><p>English is their last class of the day so they plan on getting their backpacks from their lockers then Richie meeting Eddie outside of the front office. </p><p>Once Eddie walks out of the front office with his backpack strapped on one shoulder, they take off towards the parking lot in silence. </p><p>They each get into their own cars and they’re off towards Richie’s house, Eddie following close behind him.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Woah.” </p><p>“What?” Richie asks, turning around to face Eddie after unlocking the front door.</p><p>“It’s just-,” Eddie ducks his head and smiles. “It hasn’t changed.”</p><p>Richie looks at him. Eddie raises his head back up to look at Richie, too. </p><p>“Since what? Kindergarten?” Richie laughs while turning back to the house, stepping into the foyer. </p><p>“Yeah, actually,” Eddie replies, stepping in after Richie. He takes in his surroundings. </p><p>“Nah, it’s definitely changed since then. Like…” Richie looks around for a moment before stopping on a painting and pointing at it, “that painting. That wasn’t there in Kindergarten. Or that photo over there. Definitely not there in Kindergarten. Unless we were time travelers or something.” Eddie’s giggle bounces off the walls of the house, filling Richie’s ears. Richie could never get sick of that sound. </p><p>“Wouldn’t that be weird,” Eddie giggles, looking into Richie’s eyes again. </p><p>They look into each other’s eyes for a minute, just smiling. Then suddenly, they both remember that they <em>hate</em> each other. </p><p>Richie shakes his head and looks down at the dark wood floor under him. Eddie wipes the smile off his face and goes back to looking around the house. </p><p>“So…” Eddie says after a long moment, not intending to actually say anything else.</p><p>“Oh, right!” Richie jumps into action, remembering why Eddie is here. “Let’s go to my bedroom. We can work there.” Eddie hums his approval and follows Richie up the staircase. </p><p>“Where are your parents?” Eddie asks while looking at the pictures all over the wall next to the staircase. </p><p>“Oh, you mean good ol’ Wentworth and Maggie Tozier?” Richie says in a slight accent. Eddie hums. “They’re off at work. Probably won’t be back until at least 7:30.”</p><p>“Cool, cool,” Eddie trails off, now stopped right in front of Richie’s bedroom door. </p><p>It’s a bit different from when Eddie last saw it all those years ago. It used to be just a plain white door, one time having a small sticker on it before Maggie Tozier took it off while cleaning one day. Now, the door is still white, but has a license plate attached to it that says ‘HOT_ENGINEER’. Eddie smiles at it. He thinks it must’ve been a gift from his grandpa because he remembers Richie told him his grandpa was an engineer one time in Kindergarten. Under the license plate is a black sign with white block letters spelling out ‘DO NOT ENTER’. Underneath the letters though, in really small handwriting, it says ‘or at least KNOCK’. Eddie scoffs at that. </p><p>Richie opens the door and Eddie is overcome with emotion. </p><p>He can’t exactly place <em>why,</em> though. </p><p>Richie walks into the room, not knowing that Eddie stopped following. Once he gets about halfway into the room, he turns around to see a stunned Eddie still standing in the doorway. </p><p>“What are you doing? C’mon,” Richie waves his hand towards himself, motioning Eddie to follow him. </p><p>“Uh… yeah. Sorry,” Eddie walks over to Richie, trying to hide his face by looking down.</p><p><em>Is he… blushing?</em> Richie thinks to himself, smirking a bit. “What’s up, Eds?” </p><p>“N-Nothing. And don’t fucking call me ‘Eds’, dick,” Eddie snaps at him, looking up at him then quickly snapping his eyes back down to stare at the messy floor. </p><p>“Ha!” Richie laughs loud in Eddie’s ear. “Eds gets off a good one, huh, Eds Spagheds?”</p><p>Eddie pretends to go in for a punch on Richie, trying to make him flinch. </p><p>He doesn’t. He just stands there, smirking at Eddie, realizing what he was trying to do. Richie goes to do the same thing, this time Eddie actually flinches. </p><p>“Aha! Two for flinching!” Richie laughs hard, punching Eddie twice on his shoulder. Eddie starts to hit him back, starting a whole fistfight between the two teenage boys. </p><p>The telephone on the bedside table rings then, interrupting the boys’ bickering. Eddie sits down on the edge of the bed while Richie answers the phone. Eddie looks around the room, pretending not to listen in on the conversation. </p><p><em>“Hey, Rich,”</em> a girl’s voice says on the other line. </p><p>“Uh, hey, Bev. What’s up?”</p><p>
  <em>“Well, the Aladdin is closed for today and tomorrow because Henry and his goons were throwing cherry bombs in the toilets again or something so we can’t go there. So we’re gonna go to the diner, instead. Is that okay with you? I already called Stan to let him know.”</em>
</p><p>Richie looks over to Eddie, giving him an ‘I’m sorry’ look. “Yeah, Bev, that’s fine.”</p><p>
  <em>“Richard Tozier, why are you trying to make me shut up right now?”</em>
</p><p>“What? No! I’m not.”</p><p>
  <em>“Rich, I can hear it in your voice.”</em>
</p><p>“Fine… it’s just that,” Richie looks over to Eddie again. Eddie pretends to look at Richie’s posters, still not listening. “I have someone over.”</p><p>A scream is heard on the other line, startling the two boys. <em>“WHAT?! WHO?”</em></p><p>“No! No, it’s not like that. It’s just for a project… er, it’s Eddie Kaspbrak,” Richie says, looking at Eddie warily. </p><p><em>“The fuck? Why him?”</em> Beverly asks, disgusted.</p><p>“Bev, we’re working on a project. I have to go now.” Richie hangs up the phone before she can say anything else. “Sorry about that. She just knows we kinda… hate each other, yknow. So...”</p><p>“It’s okay. We should start on the project now,” Eddie replies, hiding his hurt well by taking his backpack off his shoulders and starting to get his supplies out. </p><p>“Right, yeah,” Richie says, starting to get his supplies out, too, from his backpack that he threw on the ground when they got there.</p><p>They spent the rest of their study session in awkward silence.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>hope you enjoyed this chapter - i don't think it's good, i'm sorry! i posted a one-shot last week called Bubble Of Luck so go check that out if you want... it took me 10 hours non-stop :/ you can reach me @1986URIS on twitter! happy august &lt;3</p>
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